Images of what is purported to be Google’s upcoming Android music store surfaced over the weekend, and they may reveal several details surrounding the upcoming music service Google is expected to unveil on Wednesday. Spanish-language blog TecnoDroidVe published a number of screenshots over the weekend, claiming that they depict an early version of Google’s Android music store. The store reportedly supports song previews, includes a featured artists section and provides music discovery via a similar artists feature. Google’s mobile music store will also seemingly sport a “Free Song of the Day” page that will allow users to download one free track each day, and a “Free Songs” section populated with no-fee song downloads. Google is rumored to have signed deals with only two major record labels thus far, and it may be forced to launch its new service without the support of one or more labels.

[Via Android Police]

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Purported images from version 2.0 of RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook OS have been published by a Chinese website. If authentic, they reaffirm several details about the upcoming OS — most notably, perhaps, is the platform’s lack of support for current versions of RIM’s BES enterprise email solution. BGR exclusively reported in early August that RIM has to rewrite its BES code in order to support the PlayBook’s QNX-based OS. As can be seen in the screenshot above, that rewrite is ongoing and as such, it looks like the next major tablet OS build will not support BES email despite finally adding native support for Exchange, IMAP and POP. Beyond that, another screenshot clearly shows an Android icon in the app menu, no doubt the Android Player RIM tablet fans have been clamoring for. Additional screenshots, including the one that shows RIM’s Android app player icon, follow below.

[Via Engadget]

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Last month, we brought you exclusive images of HTC’s first 10-inch tablet, the HTC Puccini. Now, a few screenshots have leaked that give the device a little more context. We expect the Android Honeycomb tablet to be equipped with an 8-megapixel camera, a dual-LED flash, a 1.5GHz processor, and to end up landing on AT&T with support for the carrier’s HSPA+ network. The shots leaked on Friday all but confirm the tablet’s launch on AT&T. We can see it’s loaded with a few bloatware applications including AT&T Code Scanner, AT&T MyText and AT&T FamilyMap. It also looks like the Puccini will come preloaded with a few games including Cordy and Let’s Golf 2. HTC’s Snapbooth software is present, but we don’t see Scribe installed, which means this tablet might not offer all of the stylus-friendly features the HTC Flyer did. Read on for more images.

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With BlackBerry World set to kick off early next month, you can expect BlackBerry-related leaks to keep rolling in hot and heavy for the next few weeks. We’ve already exclusively handled RIM’s upcoming flagship smartphones — the BlackBerry Bold Touch, the BlackBerry Torch 2 and the BlackBerry Touch (Monaco/Monza) — but there are plenty more goodies just waiting to be unearthed. Expected to launch alongside BlackBerry OS 6.1, screenshots of BlackBerry Messenger have been posted to a BlackBerry enthusiast forum. The images show a slightly redesigned look and minor UX enhancements, but the full feature list is still unknown so there may still be a few tidbits yet to be revealed. It might not be the version of BBM we’re all anxious to see RIM launch, but it’s never a bad thing when the company adds new features to its beloved BlackBerry Messenger.

[Via CrackBerry]

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WebOS enthusiast blog PreCentral.net on Thursday published a series of screenshots from HP’s upcoming webOS 3.0 operating system for the TouchPad tablet. The images were pulled from an emulator as opposed to an actual device but we can still see several areas of the OS such as the Web browser, the virtual keyboard, Bing Maps, the music player and the messaging app. BGR took a hands-on look at the HP TouchPad when it was announced in February. We found the tablet to be quite impressive, especially in its integration with webOS-powered HP smartphones. HP’s CEO said in January that the company would be narrowing the gap between device announcements and launches, yet HP still has not announced release details for the TouchPad or the two smartphones announced in early February, the Pre 3 and Veer. Hit the break for more images of webOS 3.0.

[Via Gizmodo]

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If you’re a BlackBerry fan, there is probably not a single thing you have been looking forward to more than what we have right here — screenshots and full details of RIM’s upcoming operating system, OS 6.0. One of our AT&T sources has not only showed us the brand new OS, but has also given us some screenshots that we could share. Since we have seen OS 6.0 in action first hand, we will break it down for you guys, along with all the other screenshots, after the break!

You can see the new browser that RIM has skinned up, complete with tab switching, new favorites, and multitouch. Yes, multitouch. The browser looks like it’s coming along quite nicely, all WebKit!

Here’s the actual tab switcher view, with nice transparent overlay. No word on how many open tabs you can keep simultaneously.

Finally, a redone media player, and it doesn’t look half bad, right? The navigation in this view is done by using your finger to browse the album art work and then touching the specific album cover to start playing.

Here is what we can tell you about OS 6.0 that we saw in action… RIM has finally implemented system-wide kinetic scrolling with rubberbanding. This makes the experience a bit more fluid when scrolling through lists, web pages, emails, and the like. There is also multitouch system-wide, from the web browser to the photos application, and yes, pinch to zoom is in there.

Looking at the actual message inbox, things look a bit cleaner, and a bit more modern, but it’s obviously not a huge departure from what we have now, just another evolutionary upgrade which is par for the course with RIM. But, we definitely do like the look of the new inbox. It also features larger thumbnails to the left of each message to identify the type of message (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and we even saw RSS feeds built right in which looked great. We can’t describe this part… but the new inbox feels right. It’s not all work and dry, and it’s not over the top with cheesy graphics or animations, rather a nice compromise of the two.

Something big for OS 6.0 is the homescreen. While we didn’t see any sort of widget support, it appears RIM has made the homescreen completely customizable with pages. You can have your applications on the main page, then slide left or right to another page with different applications and browse that way. In the homescreen screenshot above, you’ll see a sliding field towards the bottom, and you can slide that up, and reveal the first page of applications, and you can then slide that to show the different groups which correspond to the different homescreen page. Favorites, all, home, etc.

Another big thing for OS 6.0 is modal popups with gestures. If you tap and hold (obviously a touchscreen device is required), you’ll get a 9 icon group centered on the screen which is basically a pretty context menu. For instance, you could be composing an email, and instead of pressing Menu + Send, you could tap and hold on the email, see the popup window, and hit the send icon there. Another use would be when emailing photos or videos from your device, just tap and hold on an item there, see the popup, and then just send the item. That way you don’t have to deal with going through the normal menu options which has gotten convoluted with all the various social services/networks available.

The photos application we saw looks quite a bit like the iPhone’s layout, big tiled square photos that appear in thumbnail view with very small borders, that you can flick that list up or down to navigate. Pictures also appeared on screen instantly, not loading one by one by one until you give up. Once you tap a specific photo, you’ll see the picture slide in from the right, sort of like the current animation now when navigating pictures on the BlackBerry. The usual top and bottom UI bars are still here, but if you tap once, just like the iPhone, that view will hide and you’ll have a fullscreen shot of the picture you’re looking at. There was pinch to zoom on the touch screen device we saw (sorry, we can’t comment on the device), but there was absolutely no fluidity when panning around photos. That’s something a lot of manufacturers miss, but, it’s obviously not the end of the world.

Composing an email looks to be a little bit more straight forward. The UI has nice, clean gradients and a very modern web 2.0-feel. Definitely refreshing. There’s also universal search across the system on here… If you haven’t got the point yet, OS 6.0 looks to be a very clean and arguably sexy UI for the BlackBerry platform, let’s just hope there are some under the hood changes as well. Our source says there are many changes we can’t see.

In terms of a release timeframe, we are sure you’ll be pleased as punch to find out that we have been told BlackBerry OS 6.0 will be in market in the June / July timeframe, 100%. I said on Twitter I thought RIM was announcing OS 6.0 at WES (not having heard that at the time), and it looks like I might have been right. RIM needs to knock this one out of the park, and you’ll know we’ll be rooting for them.

When it rains, it pours for HTC. The leak of its portfolio shows a huge number of handset offerings in 2010, the Sprint Hero will be receiving the Android 2.1 update, the HD2 looks to be headed for T-Mobile and apparently their Sense UI is getting a nice update. The latter seems to have been outed via a ROM dump running on a Hero. It’s rumored that this version of Sense will be available on a HTC device codenamed Espresso — a handset that didn’t appear on HTC’s 1H 2010 list. It’s possible that this refreshes Sense UI will apply to all future HTC Android handsets. More screenshots after the jump!

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One of the core issues many people cite when Windows Mobile’s shortcomings become the topic of discussion is the look. We’re not WinMo haters but we must admit, 6.0 and 6.1 do have a bit of a Windows 3.1 look to them. UI impacts the user experience, dramatically at times, so this is one area we’re hoping Microsoft really focuses on in 7. It’s obviously way too early to say how Redmond is doing but a new round of screenshots reported to show various areas of 7′s UI have emerged, and they may give us an idea of where MS is going interface-wise.

Above, a reported image of Windows Marketplace for Mobile displays a pretty minimalist UI with clean lines and angles. Below, a screenshot of Windows IM maintains the same overall feel, and then a shot of the podcasting app goes in a completely different direction. That’s all fine of course, but if you compare all of the shots we have so far something catches the eye. Look at the battery, signal, and volume placement in each of the shots — they’re constantly moving. Battery switches from the bottom left (Marketplace and IM) to the bottom right (maps) and whatever it is that is represented by that triangle / “Y” icon does the same; hell, the icon itself changes. Moving readings around like that is a horrible, horrible idea as far as UX goes so this leads us to believe one of three things: 1) Microsoft’s UX architects have blown a gasket, which is doubtful. 2) These shots are of various builds and Microsoft is playing with the placement of these UI elements and their icons. 3) The screenshots are fake. You be the judge — hit the jump to check out the rest of the new shots along with two old ones.

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Well that didn’t take long at all. Microsoft just handed out the first round of Office 14 alphas to early testers and leaked images of the upcoming software have already surfaced. Originating from a Russian beta tester, the images show the updated UI Microsoft will be using in its Office 2007 successor. We also get a complete list of apps covered: Access 14, Excel 14, Groove 14, InfoPath Designer 14, InfoPath Filler 14, InterConnect 14, OneNote 14, Outlook 14, PowerPoint 14, Project 14, Publisher 14, SharePoint Designer 14, Visio 14 and Word 14. The overall look, though it certainly may not be what the release looks like, seems like a flattened version of Office 2007. The same two-tiered menu structure can be seen across the top of each application that we’ve grown accustomed to with the current Office version. According to Ars Technica’s sources, we should expect a beta release of 14 to drop sometime in May, followed by a launch near the end of the year. Hit the jump for a few more shots.

Word 14:

Excel 14:

Access 14:

Publisher 14:

Visio 14:

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There are plenty of iPhone 2.2 OS screenshots floating around, but we just got a hold of some we hadn’t seen. These detail the changes to the App Store which honest to god makes so much sense. Finally you can sort the categories themselves by “Top Paid”, “Top Free” and “Release Date”. In addition to that, each category gets a cute little icon instead of just text-based lists, and you can finally browse through all the application screen shots. This means instead of looking at some stupid start-up shot, you can actually browse through the application like you would in iTunes. All in all, pretty nice improvements. Leave it to Apple – now if only we could trial apps like just about every other smartphone platform. Maybe Apple’s saving that for 2055 when they finally introduces copy/paste. Hit the jump for some more shots!

Just last week we got word that a Firefox Mobile alpha version might be coming down the pipe a lot sooner than expected. Low and behold, screen shots have been leaked. As many could have guessed, the first version we are seeing is sitting pretty atop Windows Mobile. Sure we would love to see Firefox Mobile, codenamed Fennec, on some other platforms but let’s be honest – Windows Mobile is definitely in need of some browser love more so than most other competitive smartphone platforms. Hopefully there are some other versions in the works as well; BlackBerry and S60 could surely use the help, especially from a mobile browser that manages an Acid3 Test score of 88/100! Long story short, it looks hot and we want it now. According to the source there will definitely be a version of Firefox Mobile available to the public before the year is out so all you Windows Mobile users out there should get ready to make the rest of us slightly jealous.

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Those who have been wondering exactly what the new S60 Touch UI will look like are in for a treat this morning. The first round of screenshots are making their way around the internet and they depict a few different areas of the UI. “Screenshots” is a term we use loosely however. Not to be a buzzkill, but these images weren’t actually captured on a device running the upcoming S60 9.5 OS. Instead, they’re from a beta of an upcoming version of Nokia’s S60 theme-building software Carbide.ui. Either way, they give us a nice taste of things to come. It looks like, well, S60. The addition of some larger touch-friendly menu buttons seems to be common to each screen. Don’t worry about losing valuable real estate though; the 480 x 640 VGA resolution should accommodate the new buttons nicely assuming we see some decent screen sizes from Nokia’s touch devices. The one button that troubles us can be seen in the images after the jump – a screen rotation button. Does this mean that we shouldn’t expect automatic screen rotation on the Tube? Lame. The upcoming 5800 XpressMusic will surely have an accelerometer, why not use it for more than just camera orientation? Hit the jump for two more images.

[Via Intomobile]

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